Throwable Panoramic Ball Camera – A Whole Ball of Fun

If you’re like me you love 360° panoramic pictures, but trying to get a good one is hampered by having to be very precise with overlapping, lighting and other factors. Using 36 fixed focus 2 megapixel Camera modules and an accelerometer used to measure launch acceleration, the Panoramic Ball captures a full spherical panoramic view at the highest point of flight when it’s hardly moving. The ball is padded with foam ( just in case you don’t catch it 🙂 ) and once the photo is taken can easily be downloaded via USB into a special spherical panoramic viewer.

Starting as a Diploma Thesis, this concept will be shown at SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 as the Emerging Technologies demonstration.

Let’s hope someone picks this up and starts funding a commercial version.

Check out the video below and for more info see Jonas Pfeil’s Website ( You really do have to see it to fully understand and appreciate )

I saw it on YouTube yesterday, a truly amazing thing. Brilliant idea and an indication that we’re in for more amazing ideas and innovation in future. We think we are advanced now, but there is much more to come.

Now think of the applications –
Make it small enough to shoot out of a slingshot, add an Eye-fi card. Lob/shoot them over a wall for a snapshot glance of the tactical situation. Add a GPS unit, shoot multiples from different angles, generate a 3-D model of local area… The implications are staggering. Add flash units and change the software to shoot serial images, throw it down a tunnel, into a cave, roll it into gaps in the rubble of a collapsed building…

Just put this on the KICKSTARTER website, and it will get funded in minutes flat. I just paid 2K for the new Grirocam and it’s just OK, but leaves a triangle black hole at the bottom of the 360 it takes in one click. The Ball Camera is a KILLER idea, and I want one too! I also will call the developer to see if they want a sales tech person here in the USA. This is a billion dollar untapped market.

@Ballcam – Have you thought about using Kickstarter to raise funds ?
@Keith – I was thinking about a “power launcher” for it. Some plumbing tube, an aerosol can and a piezo igniter. Only issue would be if you’d ever see your camera ever again 🙂
@ScottG – I’m sure they’d raise the funds on Kickstarter…I’d even kick in 🙂